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tv   The Cycle  MSNBC  November 29, 2012 12:00pm-1:00pm PST

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i'm krystal ball. if you were with us in the election you know thursdays meant political baseball. after baseball comes basketball season. who thought we were done with the sports thing? >> i'm jonathan capehart. steve car knack k-- >> i wish they sold tickets to this one. >> every league has its basement dwellers. if politics is basketball, who would be the washington wizards? >> as you can tell we didn't win the powerball last night unfortunately. but today's show is a slam dunk. let's start the shot clock. for all of you who loved my
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thursday political baseball metaphors during the presidential election, i've got some great news for you. with the month long debate now set for all of december on the so-called fiscal cliff, and with congress and the president probably waiting till the last minute, we now have basketball thursdays here on "the cycle." score! a tip of the jersey to hall of fame coach steve smith of north carolina. with all the talk and posturing going on, mr. director, do you have our fancy animation on this? he says it's not ready yet. >> why not? >> we'll go back to our preseason graphic. we're calling this, depending on how we feel that day, either the fiscal cliff. boo. the fiscal slope. hmm. the fiscal fiesta, my personal favorite. or the fiscal follies. this is from the boston celtics' game last night. celtic big man kevin garnett was fouled by brooklyn net kris i
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was married to a kardashian for five minutes humphries. boston guard rajon rondo didn't like it. both humphries and rondo were kicked out with another net, gerald wallace. i hope the negotiations on the fiscal whatever we call it don't end up like that. are you listening, mr. boehner. >> this is not a game. jobs are on the line. the american economy is on the line. and this is a moment for adult leadership. >> to talk all things politics, we bring in nick from the "new york times." politico is reporting today boehner and the president had a curt phone call. that's curt with a "c." should we be reading something into that? >> you almost can't tell what's happening by looking at the president and jay carney and speaker boehner are saying. you have to look further out and see where the ripples are. really when boehner's talking and when the president is talking, they are talking to their members in congress.
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so it's members you have to look at. obviously, there are teams of economists and policy experts behind the scenes that are crafting all kinds of compromises. it really comes down to the members, i think. >> let's talk about one of those members, representative tom cole, republican from oklahoma came out and said he thinks republicans should go ahead and pass what the president has proposed, basically extend the tax cuts for the middle class up to $250,000. then deal with that other piece. speaker boehner came out and sort of chastised him. but tom cole went on to continue to go on about 18 different shows and reiterated the same position he was actually on with our chuck todd this morning. let's take a listen. >> that advice was given in private. but you guys have a way of figuring out what is said in private. somebody leaked it out. that's fine. because i'm not going to -- >> you didn't intend for this to go public? >> no, no. i absolutely didn't. >> okay. >> again, it is what i said. it's not an inaccurate report. and, again, i don't think it changes where we're going.
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our chief negotiator is the speaker. he can deliver the republican votes for a deal that he thinks is the right one. i always support him in that. i'm sure i would again. >> nick, like i said, he's saying this leaked out, he didn't send it to go public but he felt perfectly comfortable going on, like, every show possible yesterday and not backing off of it. do you think this is actually a sort of strategy from the republicans by him taking a stance to the left of boehner? is he gives boehner more room to negotiate? >> maybe he's giving boehner a chance to actually kind of calm the other troops in the republican caucus who are more against a compromise than he is. it's always hard to tell with legislative politics. these guys will go out on their own, get on camera and get in the papers. what's really interesting here, i think if you pull back a little bit, both parties are facing in the fiscal cliff this incredible, like, once in a generation test of their core principles. and kind of a political test for the whole country. this is one of the few times in
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recent history where the discussion on taxes has really changed and where the political playing field has kind of tilted for the democrats on this question. it hasn't been that way since they controlled all of congress probably in the clinton years. really what we're seeing is if democrats are worried, are they can't sort of change the conversation and move the needle on taxes with all the things they have going for them right now in this political moment, when can they? >> nick, let's talk about the other side of this fiscal cliff negotiations and those are cuts. bowles told reporters yesterday it seemed as though republicans were clear there's a need for revenue and democrats need to recognize the need for entitlement reform. what exactly do you think, if you can peer into your crystal ball, what's exactly on the table here. you know, are we going to get -- >> i can't see the crystal ball.
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it's in the studio. >> are we going to get significant entitlement reform or are we probably going to be left with at best maybe raising the retirement age for social security or raising the eligibility age for medicare? >> you know, i'd be very surprised to see social security be a part of the discussion here. >> at all? >> because it's not really kind of a huge driver of the deficit we're talking about right now. it's really the health care programs. but i think if you just pull back and make it really simple for a second, what you see are the democrats are saying, wait a second. increasing taxes a little bit on the rich or significantly on the rich, however you want to look at it, is pretty popular with the public or at least has broad public support. cutting entitlements is not very popular. it could be the right thing to do. perhaps there's a way to do it. but it's not very popular. you're asking us to not do the thing and say that you want to help us do the thing that is popular. and you want us the democrats to go on the table and lay out the details of the thing that is really unpopular. are you crazy?
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>> your short answer is no, we will not get any significant entitlement reform? >> not now. i think what the democrats want to do is kind of box those tax hikes up and get them agreed to in principle. kind of break the republicans' back a little on that. then, okay, maybe we can have a discussion on entitlements. ok, there will be incredible resistance among democrats on the left to having that discussion at all. we'll have to see. >> nick, i feel like the president -- i know the president won based on campaigning for raising taxes on the rich. i know that a significant portion of america, 60%, said they agree with raising taxes on the rich. even some romney voters said hey, yeah, we should raise taxes on the rich. it seems there's a passionate fwrup of far right conservatives who are saying we don't want to raise taxes on the rich. and they seem to have an outsized amount of power in this discussion. because they are against compromise. they are super passionate. they will primary people who go against them and vote them out of office. is it that we have this passionate small minority that
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is kind of holding the whole process hostage to use a word from last term? >> i'm not sure it's a passionate small minority. i mean, it's the majority of the party. it's a core principle for the gop. it's one of the -- really one of the few core principles in kind of the post-cold war and post social issues kind of part of politics right now that brings them all together. it's very important for them to not have high taxes. what we're seeing right now is sort of, i think, and it's been a conjecture, but the orthodoxy on taxes which is very well enforced and policed by groups that, as you say, will primary republicans. the kind of core on that is it's hitting up against the fact that the tax hikes we're talking about for the wealthy are not really enormous. we've had them before. they weren't disastrous. even their own, like, intellectual elite and their own donors and many business leaders, although not all, are telling them, guys, it's okay. we'll take 2% or 3% more. it's fine. it's almost like an autopilot.
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of course, it comes out of a deeply held conviction on the right. we're seeing that collision still. >> so, nick, who are we going to see from the right or the left such as -- like tom cole who's going to say something, do something, that would basically show the outlines of a deal, whether it's on tax reform or entitlements or on social? who's going to be that next person? >> i think you have to look a little bit at the "meet the press" gang and the people who have already sort of bucked the grover norquist pledge a little bit. saxby chambliss, marco rubio, lindsey graham. patty murray. a leader of the party's left wing. she's saying, basically, look, the cliff to me for politics and substance is not the worst deal in the world. it's a terrible deal if we can't get those tax hikes. again, if we can't win this fight now and change that discussion, let's go over the
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cliff. i'm kind of watching her to see what she says. because it kind of tells you how the president and his team are communicating with the democrats and what the negotiating room is going to be on entitlements. >> nick, thanks so much for that insight. >> thank you guys. next, mitt at the white house? don't be alarmed. he's just having lunch with the president. too bad the president already ate his lunch. >> oh! >> how we think that conversation went as "the cycle" rolls on for thursday, november 29th. we're at walmart with the simmons family. how much is your current phone bill? four sixteen seventy six a month! okay, come with me -- we're gonna save you money. with straight talk at walmart, you get unlimited talk, text and data for only $45 a month per phone. would we get the same coverage? same coverage on america's best networks. you saved $146.76 by switching to straight talk. awesome! now you can afford to share your allowance with me. get the season's hottest smartphones like the samsung galaxy s2 and get straight talk with unlimited data for just $45 a month -- from america's gift headquarters. walmart. ♪
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vice president joe biden spent his morning at a costco warehouse store in washington. pool reporters tell us he helped himself to several food samples like we always do when we're there and looked like he enjoyed them. back at the white house president obama welcomed his one time archrival mitt romney for what we can only assume was a more formal lunch. certainly a post election, perhaps post partisan moment. as politico points out this morning, like most washington rituals this get-together was likely more about symbolism than substance. rarely do once fierce rivals become political friends. so why even do it? and are there exceptions to the rules? let's put it through the spin cycle. look, i think because there's going to be no substance in this lunch anyway, i think the symbolism here really is important. i'm still waiting for you to jump in here. but the symbolism is important because, yes, for the american people to show that after a hugely expensive, nasty campaign that these two fellows can come together and sit down and meet with each other. but i think overseas it sends an
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even more important message. again, hugely expensive. hugely nasty campaign. these two guys come together and yet no one died. no one went to jail to some secret prison for voting for mitt romney. >> that we know of. >> this shows sort of the beauty of the american political system. that's why this is important. >> that is a lovely sentiment. but i have to say, this is so weird. it's weird. you know, i was reading that politico story today. they pointed out, they talked to people like john kerry who said, no. this doesn't happen. bush and i haven't spoken since he won. we, of course, had plans to meet. never happened. mondale said we never sat down for this kind of conversation with reagan. i was going through some of these past rivalry moments. and, i mean, it's really hard to put politics aside when you've
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been arguing so viciously with someone for a year, maybe more. maybe even two terms of arguing. i was reading a great cindy adams post in the post. she was talking about how when fdr beat dewey he immediately turned to his aide and said i still think he's an s.o.b. when nixon's wife died he complained that bill clinton, quote, came to me for advice to save his bottom and couldn't even send a cabinet member to pat's funeral. these are relationships forged around rivalries. i think it's impossible to expect, especially these two, to move forward and have a lunch. it's weird. >> yeah. they seem to really actually have total contempt and disdain for one another. which is different than, you know, i think the president did have a certain level of respect for mccain. i will say your intro, jonathan, about costco, i was thinking i love the joe biden image at
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costco. if the two guys, mitt romney and the president, were like wandering through costco together, getting samples, that would be a beautiful image. >> that's not weird, but sitting down at lunch is weird? >> one thing i feel like they might actually have in common, i feel like they both might like costco. we'll have to speculate on that. the thing is for me, not only is there no substance here, but even the symbolism of it, what does it really matter? nobody -- mitt romney doesn't have a constituency left. most republicans are like, please go away and stop talking right now. you know, the people who voted for him by and large, they weren't mitt romney voters. they were republican voters. they were anti-obama voters. but they didn't come out because they loved mitt romney. now he needs to unite them behind the president. i actually think a more substantive and more important meeting would be a meeting with paul ryan. look, i'm no paul ryan fan. but here's a guy who really does have a following. he does have a constituency. and he's in the house. and is probably going to be a
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key part of the fiscal slope, fiesta negotiations. >> i think you're absolutely right. >> that would be productive and meaningful. >> you're right. in many ways this is a pointless meeting because romney has no real followers. he doesn't have a steady agenda to push. he's not going to be advocating for a thing he wants. if the president saw what stewart stevens wrote in the "washington post," that was total eye roll city. i'm sure he wasn't liking it any more. the president was a charismatic african-american with a billion dollars, no primary and media that often felt morally conflicted about being critical. okay. whatever. eye roll city. but i actually was working the phones earlier today. did some reporting. >> that's weird. >> sometimes i do that. and i actually was able to find out what they're going to be serving at the meal today. >> really? >> i have the menu. the appetizer, sour grapes. the main course is crow. and cold turkey. because he's been addicted to running for president.
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dessert, of course, humble pie. >> that's very clever. >> i was afraid dog was going to be on that menu somewhere. i'm glad you didn't go with that. >> that's clever. what do you think -- what do you think they're going to be talking about? let's talk reality. >> that's not awkward. awkward. >> it would be awkward -- >> i love how optimistic and pollyanna you are. >> poll lpollyanna? >> you think they're going to stick to business, you think. >> what else are they going to talk about? sports. the house in la jolla? >> they don't really know each other. mitt doesn't have that political center. he might say, look, "twilight" was good. i saw it with ann. you should have a screening in the white house. >> it could be that. i think their comfort zone is formality. business. i think they can just sit there and he can say, so, governor romney, what are your thoughts on the fiscal cliff. >> it doesn't matter. they're going to sit there for, what, 90 minutes, 30 minutes, 15? >> 90 minutes is excruciating.
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>> 90 minutes with mitt romney regardless of the person who's there would be pretty awkward. >> i think it's a good thing. i don't care what you all think anymore. >> he's over us. >> i do care about the 47 million people -- or 47% who voted for romney. i do care about you guys, right? that's cool. up next, what women stand to lose in the fiscal fiasco. now president terry o'neill is in the guest spot. [ male announcer ] when a major hospital wanted to provide better employee benefits while balancing the company's bottom line, their very first word was... [ to the tune of "lullaby and good night" ] ♪ af-lac ♪ aflac [ male announcer ] find out more at... [ duck ] aflac! [ male announcer ] ...forbusiness.com. [ yawning sound ]
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our next guest calls the fiscal crisis a big fat fraud. somewhere steve kornacki just smiled. anyway, she says dc has dealt us two horrible options. both as appalling as they are
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unnecessary. the first is to plunge over the fiscal cliff and endure both unpopular and frankly devastating cuts. the second choice is to avoid the fiscal cliff by cutting the same programs that would have fallen victim to the cliff. the only difference with this option is that it would include tax cuts for the rich. so it would seem we're stuck between a cliff and a hard place. but for one of the leading voices of women in this country, there is a third choice. and the guest spot today we've got the president of the national organization for women, terry o'neill. thank you so much for being with us. >> it's great to be with you. >> so you talk about these two terrible choices. i actually totally agree with you there. what is the third option? >> the third option is an aggressive jobs program. the real crisis that's facing our country, both for women and for men, is a lack of jobs. we've got about 5 million people that could be put to work right away if only there were jobs. they're looking for jobs. they need job. i think that policymakers are so
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enthralled by a self-imposed, made-up fiscal cliff crisis which as richard esko and others have said could simply go away by congress deciding that it needs to go away. it's like you put a gun to your head, you can take the gun away from your head. right? it's really that easy. what we really need to address is the jobs crisis. by the way, the jobs crisis is a real problem for women. women don't have the kind of savings to fall back on when they get laid off because we work a lifetime at unequal pay. also, women as parents tend to shoulder more of the financial burden of children. so we have higher expensions and lower income. that means less of a cushion to fall back on when you get laid off. it's a real disaster for women not to have those jobs. what we need is an aggressive jobs policy, put people back to work. by the way, income. we have a lot of people with income. what that means is income taxes flowing into the federal treasury. that begins to reduce your
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deficit right there. so it's win/win. >> terry, i got to say, this is music to my ears. i read your column. i really liked it. you say it's the jobs crisis that needs to be addressed right away. you say lowering unemployment is probably the single most important thing we can do to reduce the federal budget deficit over the next few years. no complaints from me. no argument there. i'm just wondering, though, where were these criticisms of president obama last year? i went through your press releases from last year. and i have them in front of me. it's domestic violence, marriage equality, war on women, richard murdoch, love your body day, abortion ban, war on women, abortion, i mean, on and on and on. i don't see anything in here that talks about the unemployment crisis. why now? >> actually, we have been talking about the unemployment crisis. i'll send you all the materials that we've put out about that previously. one of the things that we actually spent an enormous amount of time and resources on last year and all through 2011
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as well is protecting programs, especially the social security system against relentless attacks, attempts to begin cutting back. we challenged the white house very strongly on that, and i'm happy to say that we won so far. we have since then, we sort of took the -- the success that we experienced at the end of 2011 and have put together a paper calling for improvements in benefits for social security. we know how to pay for them. and we know that in the 21st century, we need to have social security benefits that actually reflect the way people live their lives today. we need a caregiver credit. so many women have to drop out of the paid workforce to care for their family members. lots of improvements to social security. and we're advocating for that as well. >> do you think, president o'neill, that american women have more at stake in these negotiations because cuts to entitlement will disproportionately hurt them? >> absolutely. look, women are disproportionately reliant on social security.
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social security doesn't even belong in this conversation about the federal budget deficit because it's not even involved in the federal budget. it's self-financed. women are also disproportionately reliant on medicare. women have higher tendency to experience what they call co-occurring chronic health problems that require medication that can be very expensive. women are also disproportiona disproportionately reliant on medicaid. fully half of medicaid dollars support nursing homes in this country. of course, the vast majority of residents of nursing homes are women. a lot of people don't realize this or don't think about it. the vast majority of workers in nursing homes are also women. so the thousands of nursing homes that could be shut down if we did to medicaid, for example, what paul ryan wanted to do to it, i don't know where those women would go or where the laid off women would get jobs. so, yeah. the threats to medicare and medicaid and then there's the whole range of social programs.
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services -- excuse me -- for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. after-school programs for children. child nutrition. job training. all of those programs, by the way, last year were cut to the tune of about $1.2 trillion. and that needs to be remembered when we're talking about the fiscal cliff. now, women really are, in fact, bearing the primary burden of all of these cuts. and so what we're saying is, let's don't engage in these cuts. let's have an aggressive jobs policy, put people to work, bring more money into the federal treasury, and lower the deficit that way. and, obviously, tax the millionaires and billionaires fairly for the first time in 30 years. >> right. >> so, terry, aggressive jobs program. great. that's the third way. president obama submitted to congress the american jobs act last september. so are you suggesting -- are you suggesting that that bill be passed? are you suggesting that it be
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reworked, junked and recreated? the second part of that question is, what are you going to do? what is now going to do to ensure that it gets passed? >> i would really much rather representative john connier's jobs bill be passed. it's much more aggressive. january ja cow ski also has a wonderful jobs bill. president obama's is much more modst. but it does lead us beginning in the right direction. we are very -- my organization is very much supporting both the schakowsky and conniers bill. and the american jobs act from president obama as well. we are working to try to get attention in the congress to those measures. and i think it's important to -- to simply make the point that although jobs are coming back in the private sector, the government has an important role to play in creating a massive jobs program that will generate
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the kind of consumer demand that will then cause the private sector to really start staffing up in a way that we need them to staff up to have full employment. but that should be the goal. full employment. >> terry, going back to the fiscal slope negotiations, there's basically no women really involved in the high level negotiations. nancy pelosi is sort of a side player as she was in the debt ceiling negotiations. research has shown that female legislators attract more co-sponsors for their bills, indicating they're better at consensus building. other research also shows in business and in the world women are -- tend to be better consensus builders. would we be better served to have a few women at the table there? >> oh, absolutely. you know, we are still well under 20% of the united states congress. and that shows in the kind of fiscal debate that we're having right now. if you had 50% of the congress were women, i think you'd have a lot more talk about the need for education and health care and the things that allow people to
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thrive in their communities as opposed to, you know, fighting over i don't want to pay any taxes, i want to grab all the money i can and run away with it. i mean, it's -- i think if you had more women making these decisions, the conversation would be much more about what it is that ordinary families need in order to thrive. >> terry o'neill, president of n.o.w., thank you so much. now from politics to pot. washington and colorado voted to legalize it on election day. so are we finally nearing a truce in the war on drugs? that's next. [ male announcer ] it's that time of year again.
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the war on drugs, while well intentioned, has been a failure. we're warehousing addicted people every day in state prisons in new jersey, giving them no treatment. >> when you hear chris christie bashing the war on drugs, you know change is coming.
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america has begun moving to the end of the failed four decade old war on drugs. but it's just the beginning of the end. on election day colorado and washington state voted to legalize the growing, selling and consumption of marijuana. though they still need to work that out with the federal government which has laws that still supersede those. california reformed its three strikes law which had sent millions of monoviol nonviolent users to jails for decades. it's dawning on voters, judges cops, politicians that imprisoning people doesn't work. after all the billions spent and the millions of arrests and incarcerated people, drugs remain cheap, potent and easily purchased and the financial and spiritual cost of imprisoning more people than any other nation in the world is not sustainable. our next guest wrote a great new york magazine cover story about the future of the war on druks titled "the truce on drugs." we can only hope.
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benjamin wallace wells, ho aw a you, sir? >> i'm great. >> i'm thrilled by the movement away from prohibition. not because i want to get high. not because there's people who want to get high and can't because it's illegal, that's certainly not the case. but because it does not work when we treat marijuana differently from alcohol. is that correct? >> i think that is correct. one of the things you've seen just in the last five years is a movement of the position that the war on drugs has failed out from a few little liberal -- libertarian cul-de-sacs into the political mainstream. five years ago anybody who would say the war on drugs failed had long hair and an unconventional tie. chris christie who you just played that clip, george schultz, former reagan secretary of state. interestingly one thing you didn't mention, latin america five years ago people who would denounce the war on drugs and say we needed a basic rethink were leftist. chavez. now you're seeing people like
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fif fi -- calderon saying the same thing. these are people who were really staunch rightists and american allies in the war on drugs. so, you know, across all of these spectra, there is some -- some real political movement. what's harder, what's more complicated, is what comes next. you know, full legalization of drugs beyond marijuana is, you know, not advisable. it's not going to happen. and so the trickier question is how do you take those incremental steps that reinvent what we've got now, this kind of fully militarized war on drugs into something a little more modern, a little more humane, but doesn't go the whole hog of looking for legalization. >> we're really talking about the legalization and decriminalization of marijuana. people understand it's not a gateway drug. there's this pragmatic leaps forward we've made. partly understanding the cost issue is not working in our benefit to continue this war on
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drugs. one of the quotes that jumped out at me from your article, the cost of the drug war exceeds the cost of drug use. unpack that a little for us. >> yeah. so, i mean, that's a -- that's a sort of interesting calculation. the basic compact of the war on drugs is that we think that addiction and illness and all the societal costs of people having access to illegal narcotics is so high that we are going to, you know, go to the mat to try to keep drugs expensive and try to keep drugs from finding those users. two things have happened in the last five or ten years that have altered that dynamic a little bit. the first is, hard drugs, particularly cocaine, have really declined as -- in terms of the sickness that they're producing. the white house's favorite study on this topic says just in the past six years, the number of chronic cocaine users, addicts, effectively, has dropped in half. that's probably a little strong.
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what we are seeing is a rapid ageing of the cocaine addict population. you have less cost of drugs reaching the users. the other thing that's happened is that as mexico in particular has militarized its war on drugs since 2006, you know, 60,000 people have died in mexico in that fight. and so the cost of keeping drugs from reaching the users has risen. and so what you maybe could have argued five years ago, though i certainly wouldn't have, was that the policy was imbalanced. now it's fallen pretty dramatically out of balance. >> benjamin, something you just said i thought was fascinating about cocaine use. you write about this, too. you said it's cut in half since 2006. there are just as many first-time users but they're not becoming addicted at the same rate. why is that? >> we don't know. i mean, there are a couple of hypotheses out there. the most powerful one that i've heard is that, you know, the social example of cocaine abuse has been not great. you know, people who are
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addicted to cocaine either in powdered or rock form don't look like great advertisements for long-time use of the drug. and so people are way more cautious around the drug than they might have been 25 years ago. i -- there's also some interesting -- some interesting, very nebulous research that suggests that maybe there's been some replacement of cocaine with -- with legal pharmaceutical drugs. people who were once self-medicating to treat low level anxiety and depression and things like that now have better pharmaceutical remedies. what we can say from the research is that this shift is very much generational. you know, about a decade ago, about 15 years ago, sorry, the average age cocaines ycocaine user was 27, 28. now it's 41. we're seeing really a particular
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population bulge that's sort of moving through the demographic brackets. >> mr. wallace-wells, let me ask you, you mentioned before that there are incremental steps that can be taken. you know, short of legalizing every illegal substance that's out there. could you give an example or two? >> yeah, sure. i mean, one of the things that we talk about a lot in the piece is the example of policing in baltimore over the last few years. i happen to live in baltimore. in 2008, the police department was locking up 108,000 people every year out of a total municipal population of 660,000. which is just totally distopian. most was for low level drug crimes. stealing, abetting. the police commissioner came in and changed his department strategy. he said rather than focusing on drugs, we're going to refocus on hard core violence. now we're arresting 65,000
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people a year. that's one sort of minor example. there are other things that you can do internationally that governments are sort of experimenting with. that's one kind of good tangible. >> that's one of the more fascinating parts of your article. deal with the violence and not the drugs themselves. check out his article. this is benjamin wallace-wells. thank you for your time, sir. >> thanks so much. it was fun. coming up next, you've heard about most influential lists. but who would we put on the list of the least influential? the capital one cash rewards card gives you 1% cash back on all purchases, plus a 50% annual bonus. and everyone...but her likes 50% more cash. but i'm upping my game. do you want a candy cane? yes! do you want the puppy? yes! do you want a tricycle? yes! do you want 50 percent more cash? no! ♪ festive. [ male announcer ] the capital one cash rewards card gives you 1% cash back on every purchase plus a 50% annual bonus on the cash you earn. it's the card for people who like more cash. what's in your wallet?
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forget the sexiest man alive, if you can. forbe's richest americans or tv guide's hot list which, of course, we made. it's time for the granddaddy of them all. "gq's" list of the least influential of 2012. here's notable interest. lackluster first debate moderator jim lehrer. sad face. number 20, what gq dubs the remaining scraps of occupy wall street. not far behind at 18, my friend aaron sorkin. chided for his hbo series "the newsroom." at the very least i object to this. at the moment as a contributor and consultant on the show this season, i promise, this year will be better. >> you'll see. >> perhaps surprising to some, first lady michelle obama is number seven on the list. >> that's wild.
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>> cited for a let's move campaign that didn't take off. >> what? >> the "gq" folks give her an a for effort and a pint of ice cream to treat herself. and he may have come in number two at election day. mitt romney takes the top spot as the least influential person of 2012. the honor was awarded mostly because of a lack of voter enthusiasm. think of it according to the editors like hooking up with the last single person at the bar at 4:00 a.m. ouch. >> we've all done that. >> speak for yourself. >> that is so -- i love this idea. because it's tongue in cheek and kind of funny and, you know, i might object to some of these picks. but i like this idea. i have a feeling, though, that "gq" might have bit off this from someone else. because here is my pick for least influential. roll tape. >> "time" magazine has released its annual list of america's 299 million least influential
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people. a new face in the top 10,000 this year is jim stutts of ft. wayne, indiana. >> i think it's wonderful. he's finally getting recognition. just for not having an effect on anyone. >> the 48-year-old husband and father of two currently works as a claims adjustor in suburban ft. wayne. >> he works here. >> my favorite. later on in the clip, they have a guy who goes, he's talked to me about moving to vienna. i don't think i'm going to do it. >> just so good. who would you guys nominate as least influential besides me, please? >> i have an actual real person. that i would add to the list. i will let him speak for himself. >> i don't know what the outcome is going to be. but you should -- we got to be careful about calling things when we have, like, 991 votes separating the two candidates and a quarter of the vote yet to
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count. even if they have made it on the basis of select precincts, i'd be very cautious about intruding in this process. >> you tell me whether you stand by your call in ohio given the doubts karl rove just raised. >> we're quite comfortable with the call in ohio. >> yeah. obama won ohio, it turns out. poor karl his super pac spent $100 million of other people's money for a whopping 1.29% return on investment. having supported zero winning candidates. >> wow. wow. wow. i got somebody, too, from the real world or he seems from the real world, actually from the alternate reality. roll tape. >> all of my feeling is where my concern is, but my thoughts, my intellectual analysis of this,
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fak t factoring everything i see plus the polling data, not even close. 300-plus electoral votes for romney. >> he's got a feeling. he's got a feeling. >> take news that belly about the feelings he has there, no thank you, sir. >> he's not a serious thinker, he's corrosive to america. listening to for anything beyond entertainment, stop it. >> capehart save us. >> my real person is lindsay lohan. come on. lindsay lohan, she got arrested last night or early this morning. >> she did? again? >> again. >> she's in the clink. baby doll is in the clink. and basically she's in the clink for a fight but she really should have been arrested for "liz & dick." >> terrible, right? terrible. and this was hyped to be a huge movie, sort of resurrecting her
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career. she's playing an icon of the silver screen. >> she's had more resurrections -- >> and couldn't even do that. >> she's had more career resurrections than liz had marriages. >> it's so bad it makes me want to watch it. i wasn't interesting -- >> i was talking to my mom about it over thanks giving and we were jett boyiboth saying it lo terrib terrible, but i have to watch it. straight ahead, krystal's version of come on, man. she's all sports center-y today.
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oh, let me guess --ou see this? more washington gridlock. no, it's worse -- look, our taxes are about to go up. not the taxes on our dividends though, right? that's a big part of our retirement. oh, no, it's dividends, too. the rate on our dividends would more than double. but we depend on our dividends to help pay our bills. we worked hard to save. well, the president and congress have got to work together to stop this dividend tax hike. before it's too late.
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if you're a family in debt, you don't keep spending. >> it shouldn't be that hard. american families do it every day. >> treat taxpayer dollars more responsibly just like families and businesses do with their own budgets. >> just listen to that good old-fashioned common sense. you know, really breaks our government problems down for the common man and that classically patronizing yet wholly inrack rat way that politicians just seem to excel is. there are a lot of lame talking
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points but this one probably drives me the most nuts. while i mostly hear it from republicans, far too many of my own have fallen for its folksy kitchen table appeal. here is the problem. first off, how much like the federal government is your household really? granted, things may be a bit different in your home than mine, but we haven't had a lot of luck getting anyone to accept our family currency. and the international markets have turned their nose up at buying our bonds. when we borrowed money it sure wasn't at 1.5% like u.s. treasuries. sometimes our neighbors do get a bit of of hand but i think a drone strike might be a bit over the top, i don't know. if fairness my daughter did attempt a mitch mcconnell style filibuster but it didn't work out for her. she didn't get her way. you may not have noticed, but our families buy things on credit all the time, especially this time of year.
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plenty of families take on long-term debt for thing like, i don't know, a house, an education. in other words, investments for the future, hey, that does actually sound like something the federal government should do. businesses do borrow, too, so don't give me this nonsense about how for families and business owners the revenues and expenses have to add up every year. they don't. my family and many others have yet to pass a balanced budget amendment. finally, have a little creativi creativity. i know you're trying to break thuns down in a way regular folk can relate to, i get it, but every time i hear a politician or a pundit use this tired, hokey, worn out analogy it's like they think they're the one who burrthed this brilliant thing. certainly everyone will be won over by their winning wit and creative. guys, the gig is up. we've heard that patronizing illogical trope about 1 million times. i'm begging you, please, please stop. time to come up with new material or better yet have
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enough respect and faith in the american people that we can wrap our little minds around the big problems facing the country. trust me, if y'all can understand it, we can, too. what do you think, jonathan capehart? >> excuse me, i'm going to invade someone. >> just as long as you continue to invade q"the cycle." we love having you and maybe you should come back tomorrow. let's take a vote. then he's back for more. >> settled. >> you folks have no idea. >> that does it for us. martin, bashir, it's all yours. >> thank you so much. good afternoon, it's thursday, november 29th, and mitt romney and america get their first chance to see what might have been. >> president obama will greet former republican nominee mitt romney. >> it's just a photo-op kind of. it's a little disappointed --